Social Robert Calvert (Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters)

[AlsoTapered]

Do we have any Bob Calvert fans on BL?

I can honestly say that 'Captain Lockheed and The Starfighters' ranks as the greatest concept album of all time. Why? Because it didn't try to be vague. It didn't try to parley foggy and faint personal emotions that could be interpreted in many ways. It's purely about how the F104 G proved to be the worlds most dangerous jet fighter to enter service. 292 of the 916 delivered crashed with the loss of 115 pilots.

Of course, it's argued that it was lack of training was a key factor and indeed, the album does go into detail of the over-confidence of the F104 Gs pilots but with a downward firing ejector seat, it meant that an adverse event at low altitude was distinctly bad news.

For people who want to know more about Bob Calvert and about the making of the album, an exceptional extended interview 'Ramblings at Dawn' shows that he wasn't the crazy drug-fuelled mess too many people seem to think he was. He knew a lot of interesting and unexpected people and we don't know exactly why CLatS was never toured saved for him saying 'it was over a lady' and he says no more.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Seen him live in playing in various guises six or seven times and had the "pleasure" of him sleeping on our sofa one night in 1986. He was one strange cookie. Also a genius.

 

[AlsoTapered]

I believe he suffered from what we would now recognise as bipolar disorder. A great Lemmy interview mentions him actually acquiring a genuine submachine gun, grenades and so forth scaring the rest of the band so much that they drove off without him.

I guess even though not a huge star, he WAS a person known of by most of the young people of 1970s Britain AS 'that mad bloke who doesn't half love his drugs... but as far as I know, he was only into acid, mushrooms and so on.

But what a genius! I mean, he truly had a wonderful mind. I bought Freq in June of 1988 and heard the sad news via john Peel. As 'The Greenfly and the Rose' played, I thought like he really COULD see into the future.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

On the two occasions I was in his vicinity he smoked a 'mix' out of his own pouch thing. I don't think anyone really knew what is was, but he wasn't sharing it with anyone and he'd also refuse any offer of a smoke or whatever from anyone else, heh.

Nik Turner was genuinely close to Calvert, so I think we can believe his recounting of one of Calvert's manic episodes when Robert dressed in full military regalia and quickmarched 12 miles to commit himself to psych hospital. Great self awareness on his part really - sounds like he got into hozzy just in time!

It's clear from any number of his lyrics that he had periods of psychedelic abandon and ofc cannabis, whatever else he was into I wouldn't presume to imagine, apart from I'd be surprised if he hadn't sampled most things such was his nature

"In visions of acid we saw through delusion
And brainbox pollution we knew we were right
The streets were our oyster we smoked Durban Poison
And we turned all this noise on We knew how to fight"

 

[AlsoTapered]

I don't think sticking to his own smoke and not sharing is suspicious, given that HE might well have been spiked with other substances (like PCP) in the past (it can be done so the smell/taste isn't obvious) and I bet he in turn had been accused of spiking others. Read about people like Keith Moon who had similar things happen to them BUT were not as careful.

He was just looking after himself and, by that time, his reputation.

Unless he got HUGELY stoned, I'm prepared to bet it was just tobacco or tobacco with a bit of THC dissolved onto it. I've actually done this. Using absolute ethanol I dissolved a block of hash - all the crap stayed as a powder, the THC dissolved. Then I dipped the tobacco (from cigarettes) into it and let it dry. NO taste and NO smell but you can get totally wasted...

But unless he LOOKED really wasted after smoking, I'm betting it was merely tobacco.

Never meet your heros - you will always be disappointed.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

I don't think sticking to his own smoke and not sharing is suspicious, given that HE might well have been spiked with other substances (like PCP) in the past (it can be done so the smell/taste isn't obvious) and I bet he in turn had been accused of spiking others. Read about people like Keith Moon who had similar things happen to them BUT were not as careful.

He was just looking after himself and, by that time, his reputation.

Unless he got HUGELY stoned, I'm prepared to bet it was just tobacco or tobacco with a bit of THC dissolved onto it. I've actually done this. Using absolute ethanol I dissolved a block of hash - all the crap stayed as a powder, the THC dissolved. Then I dipped the tobacco (from cigarettes) into it and let it dry. NO taste and NO smell but you can get totally wasted...

But unless he LOOKED really wasted after smoking, I'm betting it was merely tobacco.

Never meet your heros - you will always be disappointed.

I didn't think it was suspicious, just eccentrically secretive! He wasn't looking after any rep bro, he didn;t give a flying fuck about what anyone thought of him I'd venture. And rightly so. Very interesting fella and on the night I spoke with him a lot he was gentle in his opinion and manner, engaged, lucid, piercing intellect, very sweet actually

And, I wasn't disappointed in meeting him in the slightest mate, although I admired him as an artist and respected him, well, he wasn't some kind of 'hero' to me that I projected unrealistic expectations on or anything like that. At that time and for a fair while I was in / on the fringes of that scene, met quite a few of the others involved therein, jammed with a few of the bands and so on. So it wasn't 'other' to me in any way. That whole scene was very down to earth really, no 'star' ego's that I came accross anyway. Some cliques ofc (RDF I'm looking at you lmfao) but in general just humans trying to live freely, get high and be creative